More and more vehicle accidents involve youths and/or impaired drivers driving over the speed limit or in a reckless manner. In many of these accidents, there are passengers who are helpless and at the mercy of the driver. The passengers could use their mobile phone to contact help but most often are unable to do so in the moment under the emotions and are left without any means to resolve a potentially hazardous situation. There is thus a need for a vehicle management system capable of giving the passenger some power in controlling the behavior of the vehicle in such hazardous conditions.
As a preliminary note, it should be stated that there is an ample amount of prior art that deals with emergency stop systems for a vehicle. Some of them will be discussed herein below.
The Hildebrecht Patent (U.S. Pat. No. 4,295,540) discloses a vehicle brake and engine interlock system, wherein when the parking brake is activated, the system overrides the operator's control to limit fuel input to the engine.
The Talkes Patent (U.S. Pat. No. 1,854,868) discloses a device for automatically stopping the motor of an automobile. However, this device works with the ignition switch to turn on/off the engine as opposed to turning on/off the fuel pump, which essentially starves the engine of fuel.
The Lineberger Patent (U.S. Pat. No. 5,219,413) discloses an engine idle shift-down controller for a vehicle that includes a parking brake activated switch. However, the switch does not open a circuit that stops electrical current from entering the fuel pump of an engine, and ultimately stalling the engine.
The Mann et al. Patent (U.S. Pat. No. 4,691,801) discloses an anti-theft system for vehicles that interrupt the fuel supply when activating the vehicle's parking brake system.
The Ueda et al. Patent (U.S. Pat. No. 4,414,937) discloses an automatic engine stop and start apparatus. The apparatus requires a plurality of inputs to appear before issuing an alarm, and does not simply stop the electrical current to a fuel pump.
While the above-described devices fulfill their respective and particular objects and requirements, they do not describe a system for stopping a vehicle in case of emergency or hazardous solution that is controlled by the passenger, nor do they describe a vehicle management system for altering the vehicle behavior in case of an hazardous condition.
Accordingly, there is a need for a system that provides passengers of a vehicle with the ability to act to mitigate the hazardous conditions in which they are in.